Category: Cyber Security

2024 had its fair share of high-profile cyber attacks, with companies as big as Dell and TicketMaster falling victim to data breaches and other infrastructure compromises. In 2025, this trend will continue. So, to be prepared for any kind of malware attack, every organization needs to know its cyber enemy in advance. Here are 5 […]

Jan 08, 2025Ravie LakshmananMalware / Vulnerability A Mirai botnet variant has been found exploiting a newly disclosed security flaw impacting Four-Faith industrial routers since early November 2024 with the goal of conducting distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The botnet maintains approximately 15,000 daily active IP addresses, with the infections primarily scattered across China, Iran, Russia, Turkey, […]

Jan 08, 2025Ravie LakshmananIoT Security / Compliance The U.S. government on Tuesday announced the launch of the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark, a new cybersecurity safety label for Internet-of-Things (IoT) consumer devices. “IoT products can be susceptible to a range of security vulnerabilities,” the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said. “Under this program, qualifying consumer smart […]

Jan 08, 2025Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Network Security The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added three flaws impacting Mitel MiCollab and Oracle WebLogic Server to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows – CVE-2024-41713 (CVSS score: 9.1) – A path traversal […]

It’s time once again to pay our respects to the once-famous cybersecurity solutions whose usefulness died in the past year. The cybercriminal world collectively mourns the loss of these solutions and the easy access they provide to victim organizations. These solutions, though celebrated in their prime, succumbed to the twin forces of time and advancing […]

Jan 07, 2025Ravie LakshmananFirmware Security / Malware Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered firmware security vulnerabilities in the Illumina iSeq 100 DNA sequencing instrument that, if successfully exploited, could permit attackers to brick or plant persistent malware on susceptible devices. “The Illumina iSeq 100 used a very outdated implementation of BIOS firmware using CSM [Compatibility Support Mode] […]

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday said there are no indications that the cyber attack targeting the Treasury Department impacted other federal agencies. The agency said it’s working closely with the Treasury Department and BeyondTrust to get a better understanding of the breach and mitigate its impacts. “The security of federal […]

Jan 07, 2025Ravie LakshmananCyber Attack / Hacking Internet service providers (ISPs) and governmental entities in the Middle East have been targeted using an updated variant of the EAGERBEE malware framework. The new variant of EAGERBEE (aka Thumtais) comes fitted with various components that allow the backdoor to deploy additional payloads, enumerate file systems, and execute […]

Jan 07, 2025Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Network Security Taiwan-based Moxa has warned of two security vulnerabilities impacting its cellular routers, secure routers, and network security appliances that could allow privilege escalation and command execution. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows – CVE-2024-9138 (CVSS 4.0 score: 8.6) – A hard-coded credentials vulnerability that could allow an […]

Jan 06, 2025Ravie LakshmananRegulatory Compliance / Data Privacy The Indian government has published a draft version of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules for public consultation. “Data fiduciaries must provide clear and accessible information about how personal data is processed, enabling informed consent,” India’s Press Information Bureau (PIB) said in a statement released Sunday. […]

Jan 06, 2025Ravie Lakshmanan Every tap, click, and swipe we make online shapes our digital lives, but it also opens doors—some we never meant to unlock. Extensions we trust, assistants we rely on, and even the codes we scan are turning into tools for attackers. The line between convenience and vulnerability has never been thinner. […]

In 2024, cyber threats targeting SaaS surged, with 7,000 password attacks blocked per second (just in Entra ID)—a 75% increase from last year—and phishing attempts up by 58%, causing $3.5 billion in losses (source: Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2024). SaaS attacks are increasing, with hackers often evading detection through legitimate usage patterns. The cyber threat […]

Jan 06, 2025Ravie LakshmananMalware / Mobile Security An Android information stealing malware named FireScam has been found masquerading as a premium version of the Telegram messaging app to steal data and maintain persistent remote control over compromised devices. “Disguised as a fake ‘Telegram Premium’ app, it is distributed through a GitHub.io-hosted phishing site that impersonates […]

Jan 06, 2025Ravie LakshmananBlockchain / Malware Cybersecurity researchers have revealed several malicious packages on the npm registry that have been found impersonating the Nomic Foundation’s Hardhat tool in order to steal sensitive data from developer systems. “By exploiting trust in open source plugins, attackers have infiltrated these platforms through malicious npm packages, exfiltrating critical data […]

Jan 04, 2025Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Software Security A high-severity security flaw has been disclosed in ProjectDiscovery’s Nuclei, a widely-used open-source vulnerability scanner that, if successfully exploited, could allow attackers to bypass signature checks and potentially execute malicious code. Tracked as CVE-2024-43405, it carries a CVSS score of 7.4 out of a maximum of 10.0. It […]

Jan 04, 2025Ravie LakshmananMalware / VPN Security Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new malware called PLAYFULGHOST that comes with a wide range of information-gathering features like keylogging, screen capture, audio capture, remote shell, and file transfer/execution. The backdoor, according to Google’s Managed Defense team, shares functional overlaps with a known remote administration tool referred to […]

Jan 04, 2025Ravie LakshmananCyber Espionage / IoT Botnet The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Friday issued sanctions against a Beijing-based cybersecurity company known as Integrity Technology Group, Incorporated for orchestrating several cyber attacks against U.S. victims. These attacks have been publicly attributed to a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor tracked as […]

Jan 03, 2025Ravie LakshmananMachine Learning / Vulnerability Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new jailbreak technique that could be used to get past a large language model’s (LLM) safety guardrails and produce potentially harmful or malicious responses. The multi-turn (aka many-shot) attack strategy has been codenamed Bad Likert Judge by Palo Alto Networks Unit […]

Jan 03, 2025Ravie LakshmananWindows Server / Threat Mitigation A proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit has been released for a now-patched security flaw impacting Windows Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) that could trigger a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. The out-of-bounds reads vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2024-49113 (CVSS score: 7.5). It was addressed by Microsoft as part of Patch Tuesday […]

Jan 03, 2025Ravie LakshmananDevOps / Software Development Microsoft has announced that it’s making an “unexpected change” to the way .NET installers and archives are distributed, requiring developers to update their production and DevOps infrastructure. “We expect that most users will not be directly affected, however, it is critical that you validate if you are affected […]

Jan 03, 2025Ravie LakshmananTechnology / Data Privacy Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a proposed class action lawsuit that accused the iPhone maker of invading users’ privacy using its voice-activated Siri assistant. The development was first reported by Reuters. The settlement applies to U.S.-based individuals current or former owners or purchasers of […]

Jan 02, 2025Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Data Protection Details have emerged about three now-patched security vulnerabilities in Dynamics 365 and Power Apps Web API that could result in data exposure. The flaws, discovered by Melbourne-based cybersecurity company Stratus Security, have been addressed as of May 2024. Two of the three shortcomings reside in Power Platform’s OData […]

Jan 02, 2025The Hacker NewsCloud Security / Threat Intelligence In the past year, cross-domain attacks have gained prominence as an emerging tactic among adversaries. These operations exploit weak points across multiple domains – including endpoints, identity systems and cloud environments – so the adversary can infiltrate organizations, move laterally and evade detection. eCrime groups like […]

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a malicious package on the npm package registry that masquerades as a library for detecting vulnerabilities in Ethereum smart contracts but, in reality, drops an open-source remote access trojan called Quasar RAT onto developer systems. The heavily obfuscated package, named ethereumvulncontracthandler, was published to npm on December 18, 2024, by a […]

Jan 02, 2025Ravie LakshmananCyber Espionage / Hacking German prosecutors have charged three Russian-German nationals for acting as secret service agents for Russia. The individuals, named Dieter S., Alexander J., and Alex D., have been accused of working for a foreign secret service. Dieter S. is also alleged to have participated in sabotage operations as well […]

Jan 01, 2025Ravie LakshmananWeb Security / Vulnerability Threat hunters have disclosed a new “widespread timing-based vulnerability class” that leverages a double-click sequence to facilitate clickjacking attacks and account takeovers in almost all major websites. The technique has been codenamed DoubleClickjacking by security researcher Paulos Yibelo. “Instead of relying on a single click, it takes advantage […]

Jan 01, 2025Ravie LakshmananGenerative AI / Election Interference The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Tuesday leveled sanctions against two entities in Iran and Russia for their attempts to interfere with the November 2024 presidential election. The federal agency said the entities – a subordinate organization of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard […]

Dec 31, 2024Ravie LakshmananData Security / Privacy The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has issued a final rule carrying out Executive Order (EO) 14117, which prevents mass transfer of citizens’ personal data to countries of concern such as China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela. “This final rule is […]

Dec 31, 2025Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Incident Response The United States Treasury Department said it suffered a “major cybersecurity incident” that allowed suspected Chinese threat actors to remotely access some computers and unclassified documents. “On December 8, 2024, Treasury was notified by a third-party software service provider, BeyondTrust, that a threat actor had gained access to […]

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered three security weaknesses in Microsoft’s Azure Data Factory Apache Airflow integration that, if successfully exploited, could have allowed an attacker to gain the ability to conduct various covert actions, including data exfiltration and malware deployment. “Exploiting these flaws could allow attackers to gain persistent access as shadow administrators over the entire […]